Big Sole Blog (BSB)

ADAMS Benjamin James Adams, age 45 years, a native of New Orleans, LA, and a permanent resident of Slidell, passed away on Friday, November 9, 2012. He was a devoted member of Calvary Tabernacle CME Church and a regional loss prevention manager for Payless ShoeSource. He was also a graduate of St. Augustine High School and Southern University at New Orleans and a member of Kappa Alpha Psi

A young Barack Obama with his grandmother Madelyn Dunham of Hawaii. She passed away in 2008 at age 86 due to cancer. I can only guess at the reason my blog suddenly has so many hits from people searching for information about President Obama's grandmother, Madelyn Dunham, who was his maternal grandmother, the mother of his mother, Ann Dunham. The president spoke about Madelyn Dunham last

So, one day you get a phone call. Your crazy cousin, Great Aunt Edwina's son, has died. Actually, he was your mother's first cousin that you didn't know well because your mom never liked him, and you were glad she kept clear of the man since he made racist comments about celebrities you like and then took to quoting Glenn Beck. Now you recall also that he smelled funny and had hoarder

When my father, age 91, told me a few weeks ago that a woman, born Augustine Lemieux Stevens (a.k.a. Gussie), had died, I shuddered for moment in a spasm of grief. I grieved not because I knew Ms. Gussie but because I did not know her. Born on September 13, 1911 in Vacherie, Louisiana, of St. James Parish, she lived near him when he was a child growing up in that rural town. Vacherie sits on

Patti Labelle tribute at BET Awards 2011 with Marsha Ambrosius, Cee Lo, and Shirley Ceasar. Patti herself performs at the end. I enjoyed watching the show with my aunt and cousins last night, three generations in one place with a difference of opinion about what is good music. The younger ones were more

I'm joking. I don't think today's census workers would ever write down what this census work did in 1880. Check what's listed as Joseph Jean Baptiste's occupation.Also notice how neat the handwriting is on the snippet of the screenshot from the original document. I doubt this guy was walking and writing at the same time. Mr. Jean Baptiste was most likely a farm worker living on the Laura

By now you've heard the news that Oprah Winfrey has a half-sister named Patricia. Oprah did not learn of this news until late October of last year, and on Thanksgiving, she and Stedman Graham drove to Milwaukee, Wisconsin, to meet Patricia.The talk show host has made it clear that Patricia is the daughter of her mother Vernita Lee and is not the daughter of Oprah's father, Vernon Winfrey. Also,

Adding social media drama to the Carlina White kidnapping case, ABC News reports Ann Pettway aka Agnotta Pettway used Facebook to turn herself into authorities. Pettway is the woman who raised White under the name Njedra Nance, and is expected to face federal kidnaping charges in court today in Manhattan court.White was kidnapped from a hospital in Harlem, New York, when she was only nineteen

This is an amazing story from the New York Post, ABC News, and other sources:Carlina White, separated from her family when she was kidnapped as a baby 23 years ago, followed her instincts to reunite with her biological parents, Joy White and Carl Tyson. I remember this kidnapping being in the news after it happened in the late 80s. The woman who kidnapped Carlina was disguised as a nurse, and I

Happy Father's Day. I also published a post about the day at the Urban Mother's Book of Prayers and included a link to an old poem about my father written in 2005. The picture of him in this post is the one I used with the poem, and it was taken in 1990 when my son was born and my dad came to Georgia to help us. My former husband, our daughter, and I had just moved into a new house, which is why